RSVP Etiquette: # of seats have been reserved for you

As we’re getting closer to sending out the invitations, (and after reading some serious horror stores) I’m growing a little anxious about guests going crazy with the plus ones.

I’ve been seeing a few RSVP cards on the Bee where brides have a line that says “number of seats have been reserved for you”. I suggested this to my mom, and she kinda turned her nose up at it and told me it was tacky. I didn’t really understand why she felt this way as I think it’s perfectly fine.

I too think it’s a brilliant idea, though I could see my mom responding similarly to your mom. We have a relatively small wedding venue, so surprise guests could throw us past the max limit for the building. Plus, we really want to keep it an intimate event. We’re also going to have a space on the RSVP to mention how many adults and how many kids, so in that sense, the “number of seats” part could be interpreted as us welcoming kids at our wedding.

I don’t think it’s tacky. If she is really opposed to it on the invite, I would ask her if she is willing to cover the cost of any additional “write in” guests . . . . that is, if your venue can hold any additional people.

The reasoning is that it is considered less than polite to imply that your guests can’t read an invitation or that they can’t be trusted.

PP bring up an excellent point, which is that it may imply they are free to bring anyone if someone named on the invitation can’t attend.

People are so clueless that no matter what you do, you will have someone that is confused or clueless. Personally, I’d rather cater to the sensibilities of people who have common sense enough to know you don’t add your own names. Worst comes to worst, you may have to make a few phone calls. Chances are you will, for one reason or another, anyway.

LegallyBrunetteBee: We had two different people do this. I was super annoyed, but by the time we’d gotten these, we’d had enough people say they couldn’t come that we just said whatever to it.

But what’s bad is that one of the couples that did this was DH’s aunt and uncle. When his mom called to get their address for save the dates, his aunt’s sister was there and apparently she and her husband wanted to come. DH had never met this other couple. His parents had never met them. They weren’t really family since it was his aunt by marriage so it was basically DH’s dad’s brother’s wife’s sister and her husband. But they wanted to come. We just didn’t send them a save the date or invite thinking they would get the hint. Guess not. We also did not get a card or gift from any of them.